


Source of Warmth

by TunnelRabbit



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Abbie's fears, Christmas, F/M, First Kiss, Ichabbie Holidays, Season 2 AU, fluff/not fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-21
Updated: 2016-12-21
Packaged: 2018-09-10 16:45:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8924611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TunnelRabbit/pseuds/TunnelRabbit
Summary: I've been a devoted reader of Sleepy Hollow fanfic since the beginning (thank you all, you beautiful writers!), but have written little and posted nothing. Found this snippet, which I apparently wrote sometime in mid-season 2. I honestly don't know when this was supposed to have happened, in terms of canonical events. Whatever. Do we care? It was Christmas.*And hey, I didn't even realize there was an #Ichabbie Holidays thing going on right now. Well, Merry Christmas.





	

Heated unevenly by a crackling fire, candle-lit, Corbin’s cabin was livened by laughter and the clink of glasses. The Mills sisters and Ichabod Crane sat around the small table, which they had shoved closer to the hearth to keep the New York December cold at bay. In Ichabod’s home, it seemed natural to favor the warmth and light of fire over the sterility of modern conveniences like forced air heating (which they had nonetheless all pragmatically agreed to turn on, should the outdoor temperature drop below 20 degrees).

Abbie was glad they had decided to celebrate Christmas here, rather than at the sisters’ condo. Corbin himself seemed to be hovering in the room, in full approval. Irving and his family had gone to visit Cynthia’s parents in Maryland, as they had always done before violence and apocalyptic terrors had temporarily torn them apart; they were tentatively, hopefully, stepping back to a new normal (in which their father was a warrior battling the impending apocalypse, but was at least in full possession of his own soul).

So it was just the three of them, easing off the tensions of a tragic year.

“Who’s up for Christmas cookies and ice cream?” Jenny stood up.

“By all means, Miss Jenny. Please ‘bring them on’.”

“I could do with some coffee.”

“No problem. No, don’t get up, you two. I’ll get it.”

Jenny retreated to the small kitchen (really too small for more than one person to get anything done). Ichabod stood up.

“I believe I need a breath of fresh air. Lieutenant.” With a nod to Abbie, he shrugged on his coat and stepped out onto the porch.

Abbie stared into the flames, finishing off the last of her wine.

Ichabod inhaled the chilly night air – cold, but not brutal; it was early in the season yet, and certainly winters were now less threatening than in his day. Not only a consequence of this horrifyingly man-made “global warming,” but also of the knowledge that central heating was available at the flip of a switch.

He had thoroughly enjoyed his Christmas with the Mills sisters, but as the day waned, and the trio’s energy slipped into a warm, more than slightly soused lethargy, the ache in Ichabod’s own heart grew, as if his new, surrogate family’s intimacy served only to highlight the absence of his original family – the loss of intimacy with Katrina, and the lost opportunity for any with Jeremy. He grieved for what he had not had, what had never come to fruition, though not for want of the most intense desire.

And yet, truly, he was not alone. For he had Abigail by his side.

The door opened behind him. “Crane? You ok?”

He turned and gave her a small smile, inclining his head and holding out his arm to her. She stepped over to him and tucked herself easily under his arm. “Merry Christmas, Lieutenant.”

“Merry Christmas, Crane.”

They stood there in silence for a moment. A few flurries of snow began to fall, lit by the porch lamp against the dark woods. Utterly comfortable in Ichabod’s company, inhibitions loosened by all that wine, Abbie snaked her arm around his waist, under his coat.

“Abbie…” The word was a query, a warning, a proposition, all at once.

Abbie started, and pulled back a little. “Oh, I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be. It’s cold out here.” He turned to face her and drew her close, so that she laid her cheek on his chest.

She let out an involuntary sigh, settling into the rightness of it. “I don’t know what I would do without you here.”

“Nor I.” He tilted her chin up with a finger to look into her eyes. “Nor I, Abigail.”

Fluidly, without thinking too much, he leaned down to kiss her gently – chastely, he thought. But Abbie’s earlier move sous-vêtements had signaled otherwise to his baser instincts.

Abbie stretched up to meet his lips. She loved him, of course, and it was a moment of affection. Sisterly. Her hand at his back began to move in a very unsisterly way, stroking his spine with her thumb, and pulling him in tighter. What kind of shit was her body pulling?

The moment their lips touched, the world slipped away. There was only the softness, the taste of each other, the need for more. Their lips parted and any pretense of chastity evaporated in an exhaled puff of steam. Ichabod dropped one foot down to the lower porch step , half embracing her hip with his bent leg, holding her tight in his arms. Abbie reached up with her free hand, threading her fingers through his hair.

Jenny had arranged a tray of cookies – something she was surprisingly meticulous about – and seeing that the coffee was about ready, stepped back into the living room. “Guys?”

She caught sight of them through the window, gasped, then giggled. “It is about time, girl. Damn.” She went back, got herself a mug of coffee, and waited.

Abbie could feel Ichabod’s heart racing, could feel something else as well, pressing hard against her thigh. Suddenly, she was yanked out of the moment, remembering instead men she’d been with in the past – thinking of _men_. And sex. The messy, possessive, tawdry affairs of men and women.

She pushed back from Ichabod, hard. “No! We can’t do this. We can’t.”

Ichabod, breathless, protested. “Abbie!”

“No way. After all that bullshit with Katrina? Sex stays out of the mission!” 

Ichabod flushed, straightened his spine and was about to retort, when Jenny popped her head out of the door. “Coffee’s hot!”

Abbie strode back into the cabin, Ichabod following at a safe distance. They sat again at the table, around the plate of cookies. Jenny glanced at Abbie, questions in her eyes, but Abbie would not look up, gazing into the coffee mug she held in both hands, clinging to its warmth.


End file.
